by Caroline Leach | Feb 14, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Leadership, Learning, Social Media, Work/Life
Every communicator – and every leader – has to be social.
It’s not a matter of IF you’re going to engage with social media, but of HOW.
To be effective, to be relevant and to have influence, you need a personal social strategy. Just as organizations need a social strategy.
And while your personal strategy is just that, by linking it with your company’s efforts you’ll maximize the impacts.
“Learn by doing” is a great guiding philosophy.
One of my superstar team members, Tyler Jacobson, shared this with me when my family made a college visit to his alma mater, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Students were involved in hands-on learning in whatever department we went to on campus, from agriculture to engineering and from business to communications.
It’s the same with social media. What you learn by doing in your own social involvement you can apply at your company. And you can teach others from your experience. Learning is the main reason I started this blog.
Begin with your company’s social media policy to learn the rules of the road. My comms team is responsible for company policies. So with leadership from Michael Ambrozewicz on my team, we created the company’s first social media policy a few years ago, collaborating with key stakeholders.
And we made sure to comply with the National Labor Relations Act‘s protection of the rights of employees to act together to address conditions at work.
It’s important to disclose your affiliation with your company, make it clear you aren’t an official spokesperson (unless of course, you are), and state that your opinions are your own.
Being “light, bright and polite” is a good idea. I realized I was following this mantra myself when Josh Ochs spoke to parents at our local high school this week about helping students engage appropriately with social media.
As a side note, this is an example of how I try to integrate my work life and my personal life, rather than attempt the impossible feat of balancing them. I think about how I can apply something I learned at work at home, and vice versa.
Another great speaker at my daughter’s high school this month was Tyler Durman. Although he spoke about parenting teens, his advice applied to any relationship.
He reminded me that when you want to build rapport, negotiate or solve a problem with someone, sit next to them rather than across from them. This validated a great research-based Harvard Business Review blog on presenting effectively to a small audience.
Everything interconnects. And it’s the same with social media.
In our community we’re blessed with great public and private schools. A few years ago I served as a trustee on the Peninsula Education Foundation, where we raise money for our public schools.
When our president asked me to spearhead the creation of a new strategic plan, I learned by doing. I put into practice my grad school study of Michael Porter and what I was learning in a McKinsey-led “Strategy 101” course at DIRECTV.
A key question from the course was, “what problem are you trying to solve?”
This can be the guiding principle to create and evolve a social strategy.
Some of the “problems” I’ve been solving through social media involvement are:
How do I . . .
- Advise our CEO on launching a blog?
- Find great speakers for leadership gatherings?
- Help tell our corporate social responsibility story?
- Improve my photo and video skills in our visual world?
- Build a network of interesting and diverse people?
- Pursue lifelong learning in my career?
Last year my colleague Michelle Locke asked me to succeed her as president of one of DIRECTV’s employee resource groups, the Women’s Leadership Exchange.
Its 1,000 members focus on building a culture that enhances the experiences of female employees. The group provides learning, networking and mentoring for both women and men.
One of my first tasks was to work with the steering committee on our speaker series. Our research yielded a wish list of people.
One of them was Gwynne Shotwell. She’s the COO of SpaceX, the innovative company that manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. SpaceX is shooting to enable people to live on other planets, such as Mars.
DIRECTV is also in the satellite business with the delivery of a premium video experience, and we’re a corporate neighbor of SpaceX in the South Bay of Los Angeles.
Both companies are encouraging more students to pursue STEM careers (see Gwynne’s TEDx talk, Engineering America, and the corporate citizenship work of Tina Morefield on my team). It seemed like a perfect fit.
The only problem?
I didn’t know Gwynne. And I didn’t know anyone who did.
Until I turned to LinkedIn. I searched for Gwynne’s profile. And saw we had 9 connections in common. One of them was a DIRECTV colleague, Phil Goswitz, our SVP of Video, Space & Communications, and Design Thinking.
An email I sent to Phil led to an email invite from Phil to Gywnne. Based on their connection, we heard a yes within hours. The only detail was to find a date.
That date was this week. That’s us with Gwynne in the photo – from left, Heesoon Kim, me, Phil, Gwynne, Katie Jenks, Lisa Pue Chinery and Laurie Lopez.
We had to bring in extra chairs for the unusually large group. Gwynne inspired us with her fearless approach to pursuing her passions – engineering and space.
Coworkers I see in our cafe, courtyard and conference rooms are telling me how inspired and energized they were by Gwynne’s talk. Even people who didn’t attend are buzzing about it.
And it happened in part thanks to social media. A topic I’ll explore in upcoming posts.
by Caroline Leach | Feb 3, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Social Media
An encouraging economic sign is the number of senior-level communications roles available at big companies.
It seems a week doesn’t go by without one or two CCO, SVP or VP level communications roles appearing in social media or email.
The position descriptions show how the reputation and impact of corporate communications have grown in recent years.
Common characteristics are “key member of the leadership team,” “contributing to competitive advantage” and “creating growth and sustainable shareholder value.”
One aspect that puzzles me, though, is the continuing demarcation between internal and external communications.
Position descriptions describe responsibilities such as “telling the strategic narrative of the company internally and externally,” “handling internal and external communications” and “focusing globally on all internal and external communications.”
Perhaps the intent is that there’s extensive integration between internal and external stakeholders – with employees on the internal side and customers, consumers, shareholders, government leaders, community members and more on the external side.
Yet it almost feels like a traditional church-and-state separation between employees and customers at a company or between editorial and advertising at a news outlet.
Oh sure, there are plenty of references to integrated communications among internal and external audiences, or stakeholders. And the lines are blurring between stakeholders, given the transparent and tech-enabled world we live in.
But I would argue that what’s internal is external. And what’s external is internal.
There is no longer any line, any barrier or any boundary separating them. There is no way to message only to a single stakeholder group.
All audiences must all be considered in developing an integrated communications plan. And while one audience may take precedence over another in any given sub-plan, they all must be assessed, considered and prioritized.
When a leader holds a town hall meeting with employees, it’s an internal communication, right? Well no, actually, if employees are tweeting content during the meeting or posting event photos on Instagram.
When a leader does an interview with a major news outlet, it’s an external communication, right? Well no, actually, because employees will be listening and reading too.
The natural reaction would be to focus on the negative implications in this.
What if an employee is tweeting sensitive company information during that town hall or posting inappropriate photos of it?
What if a leader is talking with a media outlet about business strategy that may come as an unsettling surprise to employees or customers?
And while those things could certainly happen, they can be and usually are mitigated by considering all stakeholders in those communications.
Beyond that, there’s a tremendous amount of upside potential in the convergence of stakeholder groups.
Employees can be the company’s greatest advocates and brand ambassadors outside the company.
They can attract new talent with their passion about why the company is an amazing place to work. They can share feedback on recruiting sites like Glassdoor, which posts an annual list of CEOs who are the most highly rated by their employees. And they can tell current and potential customers from firsthand experience what a great product or service the company provides.
Coverage in traditional media and social media can reach well beyond the primary audience too.
Employees are consumers of news and social media just like any other audience. They set Google alerts, watch news and form opinions from a variety of external sources. And they are content creators and reputation builders as well through their participation in social media. This can either help or hurt your company’s reputation and its ability to grow and create a competitive advantage.
One holiday season when consumer orders spiked and UPS had a hard time delivering packages on time, a driver posted a response to a customer complaint on Facebook. He talked about how hard he was working to get packages to people on time.
In the process he put a human face on the company and connected with customers in a compelling way. That humanization of the company is also apparent in its marketing – its wishes delivered campaign being one example
It can work in the opposite direction, showing the transparency with which we all work. Who doesn’t remember the infamous cable company call, when a customer recorded an employee’s egregious attempts to retain the his business?
This underscores the importance of building trust with all stakeholders over a long period of time, one interaction at a time. It speaks to the primary purpose of corporate communications to build a strong and positive corporate reputation, based on a balance of the best interests of those stakeholders.
It’s also important to remember that feedback can come from a variety of places – from practically anywhere these days.
Driving home from a family dinner this weekend, my daughter was checking out Yik Yak as we were near my office. Yik Yak is a geography-based social network, where you can see what people within a few miles of you are saying.
She read a comment from an employee at my company, who said they weren’t aware of a big external event the company was involved with.
It was a timely reminder to me to be thinking more broadly and more expansively, all the time, about what’s newsworthy from an employee perspective, and how we bring “external” messages to our “internal” audience.
Sure, staffing resources and such determine a certain priority to communications plans and messages. But by taking a fully integrated audience approach to planning and messaging, the positive impact of communications can by multiplied many times.
by Caroline Leach | Jan 26, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Learning, Social Media
Should you check your smartphone the minute you wake up?
As a communicator, absolutely.
And while it’s not a good life hack for most people, as a communications leader my smartphone is on my nightstand every night. The ringtone is on for calls, and sounds are off for everything else.
This is because crises don’t confine themselves to business hours (whatever those may be these days). As communicators we have to be available 24/7 if needed. And I’m happy to say the unexpected calls are very few and far between.
When I wake up in the morning, there’s a 15-minute ritual I follow.
First I tell my new Fitbit I’m awake. And see how many restless minutes get subtracted from my total sleep time. It’s been disappointing to realize I have to spend more than 7 hours in bed to get “full credit” for those hours.
Then I see what texts and emails have come in. Just a quick scan to ensure nothing’s urgent. Otherwise, no email processing first thing in the morning.
Anthony Martini on my team at DIRECTV inspired a great habit of setting Google alerts via email – for our company, key people and other timely topics.
Then it’s on to the headlines.
First I’ll look at top stories in The Wall Street Journal, and the Business, Tech, Markets and Life & Culture sections after that. (Being in the entertainment business, I look forward to the episode recaps of my favorite TV shows.) It’s valuable to observe how various reporters are covering different topics in the news.
Then onto The New York Times. I love the Your Daily Briefing every weekday with a roundup of key headlines. If I only have 60 seconds to scan the news, this is perfect. Then on to Most Emailed (for what’s trending and resonating), Business and Technology. I’ll look at Sports, too, if I’ve missed big games over the weekend.
After that I check out my Twitter feed to see what’s happening. I’ll peek at a few of the DIRECTV feeds, like @DIRECTV, @DIRECTVSchools, @DIRECTVCareers and @DTVBlimp.
And I’ll look for an interesting story from the headlines or from DIRECTV to tweet about @caroline_leach. My topics are #corpcomms #change #leadership and #CSR. And our CSR hashtag, #DIRECTVgivesback. Opinions are my own.
It was encouraging to learn that WSJ, NYT and Twitter are the top 3 “daily ‘must-reads'” of global CCOs (chief communications officers), according to SpencerStuart‘s CCO V report focusing on the changing media environment.
As the day goes on, I check out blog posts on @HarvardBiz, for quick tips and insights on strategy, leadership, comms and more.
My office TV – a great perk of working at DIRECTV – bounces around between various news channels and DIRECTV’s Audience Network. I especially love seeing our headquarters campus and colleagues in the background shots of The Rich Eisen Show.
On evenings and weekends I’ll catch up on longer-form reading with a variety of books and magazines. Whether I’m working out on the treadmill or waiting in line somewhere, I have something to read on my phone or tablet.
My relevant screen shots are in the opening photo, not including my books and blogs. I try to read from a wide variety of sources. I’m fascinated by a diversity of viewpoints and the themes and patterns that run across many outlets.
Our household went 100% digital with our news three years ago, so it’s all on our smartphones and tablets. No more waiting for printed papers to arrive with the cold morning air, encased in plastic and creating recycling bulk that has to be hauled outside to the appropriate bin.
We still get plenty of printed magazines on a wide variety of topics. As I shared in one of my Who Am I? posts, I’m a bit of a magazine and book addict.
I’d love to hear from you. What other news rituals should I consider?
by Caroline Leach | Jan 25, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Social Media
Being in the video entertainment business, it’s especially fun to watch the awards shows.
Beyond checking out the red-carpet looks, I’m intrigued by the acceptance speeches.
There’s an art to saying something profound, entertaining and tweet-able, all while weaving in a few carefully chosen words of thanks.
Bruce Feiler summed it up well last year in his New York Times piece, Saying Thank You in 45 Seconds. According to Bruce, that’s about 65 words, or two tweets. And he goes on to give some excellent advice.
Watching the Golden Globes this month, I was listening for great speeches.
And I was especially touched by Common and John Legend’s acceptance speech for best original song for Glory in the film Selma.
It was such a classy, optimistic, inclusive, real way to highlight the film’s core messages of equality, humanity and continuing to work toward making our world a better place for everyone.
Check it out if you want to brighten your day, learn to be an inspiring speaker and do what you can to improve the world.
Looking forward to more great words at the Academy Awards in February.
by Caroline Leach | Jan 24, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Leadership, Learning
“What’s your process for writing a speech?”
That was an unexpected interview question several years ago. An energetic organizational development professional with a Ph.D. at a large corporation sat across the desk from me awaiting my response.
“Process?” I racked my brain as I tried to stave off panic. “I just sit down and do it,” I thought.
Because I’m on the intuitive end of the Myers-Briggs preferences spectrum between intuition and sensing, I prefer patterns and future possibilities to an over-emphasis on process.
However, a response was required.
And here’s my process, whether I’m writing a speech for a C-level leader or myself – like in the photo above that Shel Holtz took of the social media general session at the 2013 IABC World Conference.
As I reflected on how I prepared, I came up with a 12-step process. Here are thoughts on each.
Planning. What are the objectives for the speech? What do you need the audience to think or do differently? Beyond that, assess the format of the speech. Is it a keynote? An interview? A panel? Decide if the selected format will enable you to best meet the objectives. If not, make a change.
Analyzing the audience. Who is the audience? What are their key characteristics? What do they believe and what do you need to change about their beliefs or actions? Consider ways you can make an emotional connection with your audience.
Ideating. Sketch out ideas on paper, ask others for input and set times to “think without thinking,” a concept inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink. Consider what you want to accomplish. Then set it aside and go for a walk, take a nap or do other work. The ideas will flow later as your subconscious mind generates them while you walk, sleep or work.
Researching. Create a thesis statement. What are you trying to prove? Or disprove? Then do some research for facts and figures that support your thesis. Bring a critical eye to the online sources you choose. Will they carry enough weight with your audience? Do they add variety? Do they help you present your subject in fresh, unexpected or humorous ways?
Outlining. Create a rough outline from everything you’ve done so far. Start with a compelling opening. A dramatic statement. A startling question. Or a keen observation. Then make sure your information flows in a logical progression. Find the surprise in your material for the ending. Give the audience a “so what” to summarize. And leave them with a strong call to action of what they should do next. Start thinking about accompanying visuals. What photos, images or videos could enhance your message, add humor or bring emotion to your subject?
Writing. Now it’s time to write the first draft of your speech. But first you’ll have to get rid of the inner critic. What works for me is to “write sh**.” Just “write anything” to get words on the page. No judgments about whether they’re good or bad. Just put words on the screen. Because they can be shaped later in the editing process. That’s what I do with this blog. The real art comes in the editing, eliminating and refining.
Refining. Set your draft aside. Ideally for a day. If you’re short on time, even an hour will help. Then look at your draft with a fresh set of eyes. You’ll probably find that it’s better than you thought. And you’ll have some perspective to start editing and refining it. Does the opening grab the audience right from the start? Does the material flow in a logical way? Have you used simple words and short sentences that you would actually use in conversation? Have you triple-checked all of your facts?
Developing visuals. What visuals will enhance your talk and bring your key points to life? Consider your medium. Will you use Prezi, PowerPoint, SlideShare or a SlideDoc? Your visuals aren’t your speaking notes, so don’t cram them with a lot of words. Think about the visuals that can help tell your story. A photo or a video clip, perhaps. Watch TED talks for ideas and inspiration.
Rehearsing. Memorize your speech, or at least the key points, so you can deliver your talk in a friendly and relaxed way. I record myself giving the speech on my iPhone, and then I listen to it during drive time to memorize and refine it. Arrive early and rehearse on the stage where you’ll give the presentation. Know who will introduce you, how you’ll enter the stage and where you’ll stand or sit. Move around the stage – and even among the audience – if you can as you speak. Magic Johnson did this once at a conference I attended. He literally jumped off the stage, walked up and down the aisles, took selfies with audience members and generally spun speaking gold.
Promoting. Promote your speech before before and after you give it. Promotion before will encourage more people to attend. There are the usual ways, such as the conference website, social media channels and news releases. Tap into your own social media, whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or others. Make sure the audience knows your Twitter handle and the conference hashtag. Right after your speech, jump into any conversations in social media – to retweet observations that amplify your message, make new connections and extend the reach of your talk. Post a video of part or all of your speech in YouTube.
Presenting. Here’s where feedback on other speeches can help you. Whenever you speak, see if it can be recorded. As painful as it may be, watch the recording. Identify what you did well and what you would improve. Ask others for feedback. Act on it. Sleep well the night before your talk. Eat a good breakfast. Wear something that makes you feel great – especially bold solid colors that will stand out and contrast with the stage. Do the Amy Cuddy Wonder Woman power pose right before you speak. If you’re nervous, remember the audience is rooting for you. Be human and relatable. Pretend you’re having a one-on-one conversation with someone in the audience. Make eye contact. Smile. Breathe. Enjoy.
Getting feedback. Stick around after your talk to answer questions and ask others what they thought. See what the buzz is in social media. Watch the video of your talk. Check out the conference evaluations, if there are any. Just like in your life and your career, strive to get better each time you speak.
Many people have inspired me as I’ve come to love public speaking. I listen to TED talks during drive time – to learn something new, pick up speaking tips and identify thought leaders I may seek as speakers as corporate leadership events.
Chris Anderson who curates TED is writing a book called Talk This Way, out in spring 2016. In the meantime, some of his thinking is crystallized in How to Give a Killer Presentation in Harvard Business Review.
And Nancy Duarte is one of my favorite thought leaders in presenting with panache through storytelling – in her TED talk, LinkedIn blog and website.
This week I spoke about self-awareness to high-potential leaders at my company. Using the process above, I hope I’ve helped inspire colleagues on their development journeys. Based on some of the feedback, I’m hopeful and inspired that I did.
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